MeSU offers nodes equipped with GPUs (gamma partition) that can be used to remotely visualize your jobs data.
As the execution and the rendering of your application is done on MeSU, you do not need to download your data or use a powerful computer to perform visualization tasks.
Pre-requisite
In order to connect to a visualization running on MeSU, the TurboVNC software must be installed on your local computer. It is available on Linux, Windows and MacOS.
While other VNC protocol implementations exist (TightVNC, RealVNC, etc.), only TurboVNC provides the features required to connect to MeSU. If you already have an other VNC implementation installed, you should still install TurboVNC.
In order to install TurboVNC, please refer to the official documentation.
Starting a new session
When logged in on MeSU, you can start a new session by using the command visu-start-session :
user@mesu2:~> visu-start-session Visualization job 12345 submitted Please wait while session is starting ... Session is now running, use the following information to connect with TurboVNC Address: xxxxx.dsi.upmc.fr:1 Session password: pksfpz View-only password: odmspe You may stop the session using 'visu-stop-session'.
Behind the scenes, the visu-start-session command submits a job to the Gamma partition of MeSU.
You can check that your session is running by using regular jobs monitoring commands :
user@mesu2:~> qqueue -u $USER JOBID PART CATEGORY NAME USER ST TIME NODES CPUS NODELIST(REASON) 569293 gamma normal visu user R 0:00:07 1 6 xxxxxx
Connecting to a session
Once your session has started on MeSU, open TurboVNC on your local computer.
TurboVNC will expect you to provide the session address and the session password.
Use the information output by the visu-start-session command.
The visualization session script generates two random passwords that will allow you (and possibly others) to connect.
The session password is the main password, it provides the mouse and keyboard controls of the session.
The view-only password can be shared to invite other people. They will be allowed to connect but won’t have control over the session.
Once connected and authenticated, TurboVNC will then open a window with a desktop running on one of MeSU Gamma node :
The desktop environment is based on Fluxbox. Other environments such as Gnome or KDE are not available.
On the desktop, shortcuts are provided to open a terminal, a text editor and a file browser.
You can also open applications by using the desktop menu (right-click on the background).
Behind the scenes, your session is wrapped by VirtualGL. Thus, you have access to the GPU 3D acceleration without having to perform any additional command or configuration.
To start your graphical application, simply open a terminal, load the required environment modules and call it.
Note that visualization are capped to a 48 hours walltime.
Terminating a session
When you are done with your session, you can close either by exiting the window manager :
Or by calling the visu-stop-session command from a MeSU login node :
user@mesu2:~> visu-stop-session Visualization job 12345 terminated